PURELY POLITICAL Spending
The latest $6.1 trillion budget proposed by President Biden makes it official: spending is totally out of control
PURELY POLITICAL
By James Buckley
(Jim is founder of the Montecito Journal, was top political columnist for the Santa Barbara News-Press and currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Santa Barbara Currents (sbcurrents.com), a newly launched website devoted to featuring alternative thoughts and opinions that aren’t often [if ever] given space or attention in what’s called the “mainstream media.”)
U.S. Government Spending Now Officially Out of Control
The 2024 “budget” delivered by the Biden administration calls for spending $6.1 trillion (6,100,000,000,000,000), 9.5% more than the U.S. government spent in fiscal 2023.
Why?
There is no good answer.
But apparently, if you are a government economist, you’ll not ask why.
You’ll ask, “Why not?”
As recently as 2019, the U.S. budget came in at $4.45 trillion (which included, even then, nearly a trillion dollars of borrowing to cover the excess spending).
You’ll hear the usual caterwauling and hand wringing when a sacred bull of a Representative or Senator has been targeted for a budget cut… well, nothing is ever actually cut for anything, but perhaps the sacred bull will only get an 8% bump when others are being awarded a 10 or 11% rise.
So, they fret and tell us how important that sacred bull is and how people will suffer and die if the spending comes in short.
We fret too, but for wholly different reasons (only those in charge of spending our/your money don’t). The federal debt stands at $33.5 trillion and moves upwards so fast (at a clip of nearly $3.3 billion a day) that merely typing in an amount immediately makes it ancient history.
But, let me be the “What Me Worry?” kid.
I’m not concerned about the federal budget deficit.
Because I know how to fix it.
Quickly.
We can do it in four steps.
First: Disband, destroy, and deactivate the Department of Education. Fortunately, there is historical precedence for doing just that. The original Department of Education was created by President Andrew Johnson in 1867 when it was proffered that collecting information and statistics about schools in the U.S. would be a good idea. Barely a year later, a Republican-controlled Congress decided that the new Cabinet-level department would exercise too much control over local schools and was reduced to a humbler Office of Education.
According to U.S. government website 2.ed.gov, “Over the years, the office remained relatively small, operating under different titles and housed in various agencies, including the U.S. Department of the Interior and the former U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare (now Health and Human Services).”
The 2024 proposed budget features $90 billion for the Department of Education, an increase of $10.8 billion (13.6% more than in 2023). The department’s proclaimed mission is “to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering education excellence and ensuring equal access.”
Fostering education excellence seems to have dropped off the Education Department’s radar screen, and as far as “achievement and preparation for global competitiveness” goes, the top countries in math are now: Singapore, Macao, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan. The U.S. comes in near the bottom in a survey of 30 industrialized countries. It was once Number One. In science, the stats are similar: Singapore, Macao, Estonia, Japan, and Finland are the top five. According to the Balance Financial Review Board, “U.S. students may not be as prepared to take high-paying computer and engineering jobs, which often go to foreign workers.”
A simple reduction in spending by eliminating this do-nothing and destructive Cabinet-level Department would save U.S. taxpayers real money.
Home-schooling, anyone?
Second: Do away with the Department of Energy (launched in response to the 1970’s Carter-era fuel crisis) whose goal was to ensure the independence of the U.S. by producing enough energy to be a self-sustaining producer. That goal was reached in 2020 via the policies put in place by President Donald J. Trump, but hastily abandoned by Joe Biden when he became president.
The Department of Energy has been allotted $51.99 billion for 2024, a 13.6% increase from 2023.
Third: Combine the Departments of Commerce ($58.383 billion), Labor (approximately $125 billion), Health and Human Services ($1.7 trillion in mandatory and another $144.3 billion in discretionary spending), and Transportation ($108.5 billion), into one Department of the Interior. Every one of these departments come with a contingent of limousines, staff cars, private jets, palatial offices, and useless employees, along with a never-ending expansion of supposed missions and mission statements. By combining them into one agency, taxpayers stand to save considerably.
Fourth: Do away with the Small Business Administration (proposed 2024 spending: $58 billion), which has become nothing but a haven for the DEI (Diversity! Equity! Inclusion!) crowd and does absolutely nothing but hand out money to preferred clients and offer “loans” to favored individuals (such as the $300,000 “loaned” to and never paid back by the late Susan McDougal, real estate partner of Bill and Hillary Clinton). Heterosexual Caucasian males need not apply.
Many Departments use subterfuge and conflicting methods of determining their actual spending, so accuracy is a problem. Don’t’ write to me about my numbers being wrong; I know I’m close.
U.S. taxpayers could save close to $2.2 trillion by instituting the above four recommendations. Government workers cannot be fired (a major reason not to allow unionization), so most will have to stay on until they either quit or are pensioned out, and many duties will have to continue, but a saving of at least $1.5 trillion could be achieved in the first year alone.
The president’s 2024 budget proposal features a combined 9.5% increase in the overall 2024 budget, so if a freeze in spending and hiring could be attained along with a reduction of Cabinet level departments and positions, we could save another $700 billion, wiping out this year’s deficit and balancing the 2025 budget.
Another big saver would be, of course, decertifying government unions. All presidents, even Franklin Delano Roosevelt opined that allowing government workers to unionize would be disastrous for the U.S., but John F. Kennedy’s Executive Order 10988 gave federal employees “the right to join, form, or assist labor organizations,” as worded by the U.S. Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA).
Because of that Executive Order, federal unions and federal employees have become a money tree for the Democrat Party and a disaster for the idea of budgetary restraint.
If we don’t do something soon, many will truly suffer, as will the country.
I think we all know who those sufferers will be.
Yep, Jim! Spending in this Country is just like an aggressive cancer. Once the cancer metastasizes, the “Body” is dead! Unless stopped soon, call the Coroner!
THIS is a responsible and bold start to manage public money. THis has my vote!